Welcome to my birding blog - first launched 12th March 2012...
Sunday December 30th 2012
The Last Picture Show
[of 2012!]
Unexpectedly we squeezed in an extra day's birding up in the Saltholme/Hartlepool area. An early departure made the most of the day and we were in the marina at Hartlepool by 9.30 watching the large number of red-breasted mergansers [well into the teens]. Females are often shy so I was pleased with this shot. A bit scruffy - bad hair day - compared with a goosander!
Males are pretty smart.
I got some flight shots too. Let's compare goosander and merganser.
Well, let's see the merganser again...
Some birders had a quick look for the black-throated diver and left. I was more persistent and took Barry round to the other side of Jackson's Landing where he soon spotted the diver among even more mergansers. Here's a few more photos of this great bird. It comes in many guises and can look completely different from differing angles and in changing light. Here goes...
A little grebe was also pottering nearby among the pontoons. Difficult to photograph it barely stayed above water for more than a second or two.
We moved on to Newburn Bridge where the med gull was still present along with turnstones, oystercatcher and redshanks. At Saltholme we went to the Wildlife Watchpoint. Things were pretty quiet but I photographed a moorhen and for once I got what I have been looking for. Perhaps I'll leave it at that as far as moorhens are concerned!
A walk around the reserve produced many distant curlews and a fair mix of wildfowl including a nice pair of pintails.
A kestrel was busy quartering the open ground and we had multiple views culminating in a hover almost above my head. The final shots in this sequence have only been very slightly cropped. Real frame fillers!!
Between the high tension power lines.
Safe landing.
This one is my favorite however.
Finally in the Phil Stead hide [where all was very quiet] I photographed this goldfinch.
Before we left we parked at the roadside and finally spotted the barnacle geese bringing our day total to 50.
Looking back over the year I wondered what was my favourite image. Close call between a number of birds but I do love this one, so I'll end the year on the crest of a wave!
2012: Yorkshire 134
UK 278
Wednesday 26th- Thursday 27th December 2012
Two days after Christmas...
Boxing Day 26.12.12
Well, Boxing Day was ok but no photos for the blog, I'm afraid. We went rather late to Ellerton Church to watch the birds on the ings - the actual river is hard to detect in the large expanse of flood water between Thorganby, Bubwith and Ellerton. The light was poor and it was cold, windy and rather bleak but we saw plenty of wildfowl including some smart pintail and mute and whooper swans. We failed to spot the reported 19 Bewick's swans.
We went on to North Cave where it was milder and more sheltered. Highlights of the day were probably lesser redpoll and siskin in the alders at the far end of the reserve.
Wednesday 27.12.12
The weather woman [my wife] advised us to head south to avoid the rain. so we aimed for Far Ings and Alkborough Flats with a possible trip late on to Worlaby. That never came to pass as you will discover...
Far Ings was populated by a crack team of SAS men in rusty brown full body camouflage. They both spoke english with a gruff east european accent and when we met them again later they seemed shocked we had moved on so soon. I think they may have been fifth columnists and we caught them out planning their next piece of ornithological sabotage. We tramped past them with a fairly straight face... and never saw them again.
Have you seen this man?
Barry and I tried to put them out of our minds and carried on. We paused a while in a small hide on the pool that looks towards Reeds Hotel. We had noted on recent trips that the great crested grebes seemed to be hiding from us. Well this one was quite close to the hide.
Eventually s/he swam out of view into a channel between the reeds.
I took Barry on a walk round the back of the hotel, up onto the bank overlooking the Humber and then into the hotel grounds and down the drive. As we walked we could hear geese approaching and soon saw a skein of pinkfeet heading south-west.
We saw a few birds like robin, tits and a fieldfare. We came to a pool on the side of the entrance road where I knew the drake smew [which I had seen before] was regularly reported. Barry called out as a putative goldeneye flew over our heads to join the throng of goldeneye already on the pool. Once it had splashed down it was apparent it was no goldeneye but our target bird, the drake smew.
An attractive couple! It certainly seemed as though the smew wanted to associate with the goldeneyes.
Well it is a monochrome bird, isn't it? Here's the same shot, differently edited, in colour.
Back to the car park, Barry went across the road to another pair of pools to see what was about. Knowing that was a muddy area I waited on the road ready to venture into the mud for anything really good. Next thing I knew something put up a large number of greylags and they came towards me, low over my head. Pity I've no sound effects!!
And so we went on to Alkborough. We met a man and his son [Sam Viles, I suspect, but I'm not 100% sure - if so, nice buff-bellied pics, Sam!] and walked from the new car park to the main hide and then, as the tide was super-low, we went on and on and on...and on...
...we passed a couple of little egrets that I was just raising my lens toward when they panicked and flew off...
... until we reached Trent Falls. I had always wondered what it was like. Now I know I don't think I'll be rushing back! I expected a hide near the water's edge with thousands of waders. I climbed the bank and took this photo...
There were few birds in sight. Some linnets and twite were knocking about. I spotted a redwing. A few greylag that had escaped from some suburban housewife's pride of place above her fireplace flew past...
...if you know what I mean! 2 juvs and an adult?
It began to rain. We headed back to Tiggy. We had had a good few days. I suspect New Year's Day will be our next outing. Let's hope for some kinder weather [or a lifer in I don't care what weather!!]
Sunday 23rd December 2012
Have a gander! Heads back and three shots of the moon!
...and a Merry Christmas to all birders, readers and to Mr. B. Bishop, aka Barry!
Plan R: Fairburn Ings nice & early; Old Moor and Blacktoft. Target: sort of easy-going bird race. Possible practice for the big 70 on January 1st!! [We'll be lucky...]
Fairburn was quiet and windy and my eyes ran; we saw great spotted woodpecker, goosander and other usual suspects but moved down to the visitor centre. Female bulfinch present, some paths flooded. Time for Old Moor.
As we walked in a bullfinch was sunning himself from inside a hawthorn bush.
There seemed to be little to photograph. I picked out a tufted duck and a greylag goose.
Back at the car park I spotted a reed bunting quite well camouflaged in the hedge.
A close-up makes him more obvious.
Brambling were also in the hedgerow. We called briefly at Broomhill to see a duck friend of mine but he wasn't showing. Two drake goldeneye were displaying in front of the hide. I popped back to Tiggy for the camera.
By 2.30 we were in the hide at Singleton at Blacktoft. The moon had already risen.
A shelduck flew towards us giving an unusual view.
More conventional scene.
Golden plover were rising up in large numbers from over Alkborough way... Spot a couple of dunlin in the mix.
Lapwings too were on the move in the darkening sky.
Soon marsh harriers began to appear.
One harrier seemed to be escorting a ship as it came up river on the high tide.
More lapwings came over, quite close to us.
Excitement swept over all the birders in the hide as, from the left, a male hen harrier came into view as the light began to fade.
Grey male.
My favourite!
A smidgin beyond belief. Missed me!!
We call some hen harriers ringtails. They're all ringtails!!
In the gloom a female goldeneye that had been flying in and out from the lagoon all afternoon came back in.
The light was now very poor. The moon was shining down on us. [Canon 400mm lens plus 1.4 extender]
Barry spotted the moon reflected in one of the ponds beside the path as you approach reception. I tried a shot... [1/20th second, f5.6]
Didn't really work!!
The grey male went to roost...
58 birds seen. 12 short of J1 target.
Still, a really good day. We went home.
Tuesday 18th December 2012
Crash! Bang! Wallop! What a picture! What a photograph!
Half a Sixpence, Tommy Steele, 1965
Explanation will follow later. Just reminiscing, really. Odeon Cinema, Preston, Lancs, sometime in 1965. Age 15. Right: mist nets?
On Tuesday I decided to head back to Hartlepool for better photos of the black-throated diver if I was patient enough to wait for it to come close. Various reports suggested it sometimes came very close indeed. The other reason was possible mealy redpoll at Saltholme. And I like the drive. Steady 65mph. What a good boy I was.
So I headed first to the Premier Inn, Hartlepool marina. Good views of up to 14 male mergansers plus females. No sign of the diver at first but I spotted it after about twenty minutes in the main basin where the PSS Wingfield Castle is moored. It was somewhat distant from where I was. I took some shots of the mergansers.
I drove round to the south side of the basin but the diver had vanished. Some birders told me it had swum round to the other side of Jackson's Landing. I got back into Tiggy and drove round, the drive necessitating several roundabouts and about a three-quarter mile drive to go 200 metres! I parked by the deserted Jackson's Landing building with the diver visible alongside me! I jumped out, grabbed the camera. The diver had swum into a dead end where there were lots of boats, their colours reflecting in the water. I didn't realise just how good some of these shots would be.
When I got home and started to work on the photos I was amazed by the different colours in the water from different boats as the bird swam sedately past. At one point the bird just swam right past me! Looking at the images the thought just came to me: 'Crash! Bang! Wallop! What a picture! What a photograph!'
Some of my best, I think... Here they are, the wonderful black throated diver.
I suppose of all of them this is my favourite - the crash, bang, wallop pic!
More mergansers appeared too, coming just as close as the diver.
After that anything else would no doubt be an anticlimax but I decided to head south towards Saltholme. A brief call at Newburn Bridge [low tide] with no sign of my med gull friend. I spotted this bird on the beach however.
Godwit. Bar-tailed I wondered. Quite short in the upper leg looking through all the photos.
This photo convinced me it is bar-tailed.
On then to Saltholme via a quick drive up the North Gare access road. 'Road' is becoming a bit of a joke. The potholes are now ridiculous and some cars are really struggling. I used my mobile hide to snap these record shots of redshank, moorhen and lapwing.
At Saltholme on my way to the Wildlife Watchpoint area where the redpoll had been reported I saw movement in the reedbed. I expected something like a reed bunting to be the cause. I was delightfully wrong!
I spent some time watching goldfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch and reed bunting, hoping to find the mealy redpoll among them.
Female chaffinches are rarely photographed. Note the green colouring.
Someone said the redpoll had been seen that morning - three of them. Funnily enough I eventually saw three redpoll on the banking across from the hedge everyone had been watching. Three lesser redpoll in my opinion, so no tick. I managed a couple of reasonably focused shots through all the dead plant material on the bank. The birds stayed only briefly and vanished on the stiff, cold wind.
Shopping, wrapping paper, tree lights beckon. Hope Barry's free this weekend...
Saturday 15th December 2012
Tale of Three Reservoirs:-
Anglers', Wintersett & Cold Hiendley
Barry and I set off at 8am to go to the three reservoirs in search of a couple of ticks for Barry and some nice images for me. In particular I dipped on the American Wigeon last week so it would be nice to catch up with it. As we set off from the car park the noise of geese alerted us to the arrival of some canada geese. We continued towards the hide in search of other birders who might have located our target birds.
There's a lot you can do at Anglers' Country Park. For instance you can go for a sail in the winter sunshine...
...or you can go flying...
...and there's water skiiing...
...which is fine till you fall off!
There's also the annual Anglers' CP Biathlon, usually with several hundred competitors from North America: six laps of the reservoir in the air and six swimming laps...
Armed with some up-to-date info we eventually located the long-tailed duck. Here's just one shot for the record.
When you think about it, a sort of splodgy, mucky bird!
We had been joined by now by another birder from Notts called Carl. He stayed with us for most of our stay. I think he had a good day.
I tried to get some flight shots of some of the many goosanders on the reservoir. I was quite pleased with the results.
Although much more distant my attempts at photographing goldeneye and pochard in flight captured a few nice memories too.
This smart drake mallard was a much easier 'prey' for my lens.
As was this goldeneye as he rode the waves.
Geese photos are often lacking in interest so I was pleased when something [a dog, no doubt] put the canada geese up and they came towards me on a nice angle...
It was quite a walk to the north end of the reservoir but Barry had kept an eye on the large number of wigeon grazing on the grass. By now they too had been disturbed and were in the water. Spot one that's a bit different!
Not easy through the bins! Enlarged as if looking through a scope and it's much clearer in the good light we had that morning. [Same photo]
There follows a selection of my american wigeon photos. First of all, the self-inflating american wigeon!
It wasn't easy to keep track of the bird amongst the several hundred other wigeon.
But it was nice to get some good close-up views.
After a while the birds took off and I lost track of the american.
We headed back towards the car park. A bullfinch was near the visitor centre.
Trying to find scaup or smew on Wintersett reservoir was unproductive to say the least. Frustrating, as the smew was obviously still around and was reported on Sunday. Barry recommended I look closely at the right hand edge of a flock of Canada geese distant on the ploughed field further ahead.
This is a poor quality, much-enlarged photo but it does show, for the record, that there were four egyptian geese present too. Two to the left and two to the right of the look-out goose.
We set off for the far side of Wintersett. I thought I knew the way but I went further than I realised and took us to the far end of Cold Hiendley reservoir. By this time I was in some back pain with carrying scope and camera and felt completely knackered. [Is knackered an appropriate blog word?] Carl probably thought we were wasting his time. Here's Carl.
Eventually we devised our own route back through the undergrowth and reached the dam that separates Wintersett from Cold Hiendley. I had lost interest by then. A lone dinghy-man was sailing around and had obviously displaced all the birds. Carl and Barry walked on towards the bridge. I followed reluctantly. Barry realised there was a very large flock of tufted duck down below on Cold Hiendley, taking refuge presumably from dinghy-man.
I put my scope up. Eureka! I homed in on two drake scaup. QED! [Quod Erat Demonstrandum: Which Was Demonstrated. There's nothing quite like a bit of pretentious pedantry when you're feeling low!] Carl walked on ahead until we lost sight of him.
A kestrel hovered over the trees as the light began to fade.
It was another grand day's birding. Barry said 'It'll soon be summer!' You see for Barry summer means any time after December 21st as the days grow ever optimistically longer.
Yes, just can't wait for that good old sinusoidal curve to kick in!
Malcolm: What is he on about?
Sheila: Don't ask me! I'm not a doctor!